Deuteronomy and Authentic Religious Society

By Rabbi Alan Yuter
Posted Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Deuteronomy opens with the words:

1. And are the words
2. that Moses said
3. to the Israelites

There is no "and," connecting Deuteronomy to Numbers. The speaker in Numbers is God, the speaker in Deuteronomy is Moses, according to the plain sense of the narrative and according to the Zohar. The speaker is a human being who translates God into human language. Human language is not divine language, but in the Torah, God's rules come alive in human words.

We are told that "these" are the words, to the exclusion of any and all other words. The demonstrative pronoun teaches that the Torah is infinite wisdom in finite human language. This Torah, which is, once written not any longer in Heaven, cannot suffer additions or subtractions, and we are to be Centrist religious Jews, not veering to the Left or to the Right. Should we veer to the Left and diminish Torah, we are bereft of our covenant by our own choice, and should we believe God's commands are insufficient, and in misplaced zeal we add to the Torah, we ruin God's recipe for redemption. But the religious Left and religious Right are, for the Moses who spoke Deuteronomy, religiously wrong.

In this Mosaic law and speech, the content of which may not be changed privately by charismatics, prophets, or by those who pretend to express Torah opinions that contradict the Torah opinion recorded in the Torah document. There is no vertical elite, no upper class or synod that sinfully claims to be closer to God than anyone else. The Torah does not accept private revelations, inspired intuitions, or what some take to be axiological concepts by which Tradition, given to them and not to all Isarel, must be understood. These thinkers claim to be the salvation, way and life, with no one appreciating or intuiting the will of the Father but them. A Torah that is not publicly accessible is not Torah at all. Some claim to divine the aim, or telos  of the Torah. What they are really saying is that they, the readers of the mind of God, want to "tell us" in God's name what to do. Deuteronomy also views the false prophet, who speaks in God's name when not spoken to by God, to be guilty of theological treason. The politics of oppression are structurally barred in God's unchanging law. Moses and not God did the talking in Deuteronomy. The Torah is not heard in a thunderclap, but in humane human language.

The words that God used to make the world are entrusted to humankind to shape the world. When humankind obeys the law by using words to discover the divine, by not adding to or subtracting from the divine recipe, which views each human being as the singular and unique image of God, God dwells amongst humankind. But when words are manipulated to abuse and use human beings, when one person is exploited as the instrument of another, when the law becomes an instrument of control instead of a source of security and power, than humans become idolators.

The Hamas and Hizbolleh parties believe that there is no God but Allah, but Allah is not revealed in any book that God could or would have Authored. A Quran that is given to Gabriel and to one preson, Muhammed, cannot be the Covenant of Israel which was given in public, for a public, and whose rules are public and not private. The Allah who is benevolent and beneficent demands submission and surrender, in Arabic, Islam. So when Israel, for better or worse, withdrew from Gaza and Southern Lebanon, the condition for that withdrawal was the demilitarizing of Lebanon's southern border, the Hamas and Hizoblleh sent unprovoked projectiles the aim of which was to kill and terrorize Israelites and kidnapped Israeli citizens. When Israel retaliated, after provocation, the retaliation was called "disproportionate." After all, the Arabs used and abused each other as human shields. Israel has to their mind no right of self-defense because Israel has no right to live. Anti-Israel protestors at a Baltimore rally in solidarity with Israel claimed that "violence is not the anwer, it is the problem." How right!. Israel's resorting to violence is evil because it is an act of self-defense which is, for Israel's enemies, not defensible. When Jews get hit, the world yawns. That is the way it is, the way the world ought to be. When Jews hit back, making the hitting of Jews hurtful not only to the Jews, the world protests.

Haman the Aggagite realized that the Jewish ethos that preaches equality and dignity, is dangerous for tyrants. People using words instead of swords get in the way of people who intimidate because they cannot persuade. They control others by rendering them timid. Piety is expressed in passivity, loyalty to the accepted order, and by nullifying one's own moral compass, The mass rallies where people shout slogans and demand uniformity of thought are conditioning the audience not to think at all. To be different, to argue in Arabic that Jews are people, too; to claim in Nazi Germany that the Jew is a real mentch and not an untermentch, is dangerous. In the oppressive society, truth cometh from the person in power who demands uniformity of thought, action, contrived ritual, and often, uniform dress. God's Torah not only allows autonomy, it empowers personal choice that is informed by the written word and empowered by the thinking conscience. The authentic Torah Jew is more interesting in shaping up before God than fitting in amongst people. She is the Jew for whom the word is more powerful and enduring than the sword. Swords may be beaten beaten into plowshares by the word of the command. Deuteronomy teaches "these" are the words. Other words are not God's words. God's word liberates, political human words condition the individual to accept the status quo. By these words and laws swords will be no more, but the words endure, as we teach them to our children, we use them in our discourse, when we lie down and rise up, and by their mandate, we live in this world in preparation for the next.

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